love- hope- strength

“I'm just gonna sing about the things that I need:
A little bit of love, a little bit of hope
A little bit of strength, some fuel for the fire.

To build the ships to set the sails
To cross the sea of fools
To be dealt the cards
To play our hand
To win or else to lose
In this cruel world that kicks a man when he's down.”

~ The Alarm, Deeside.


fearful times

Without venturing into making sociopolitical statements, many agree that we live in upsettingly violent and fearful times. And that is excessively our context. An ordinary person, of dauntingly modest influence, can at least try encouraging others. Being a grain of inspiring leaven must persist with every passing day. Straight through the doldrums, no matter the ignominy. The stewarding of responsibilities is a trail that rarely juxtaposes with pursuits of success. Indeed, I’ve always tenaciously worked for both, but my high-minded idealism remains along a castle courtyard in the sky.

As one recession follows another, I thankfully keep on working. Whether or not it’s satisfying has had to decrease in importance. Scores of skilled workers lose their jobs, and exponentially more lose their homes. What may one dare to presume? The job market is as lifeless as this present culture is impoverished, yet personal defeat cannot be permissible. I must continue fueling my own engines. There are too many things yet to be accomplished; giving up the ship is still not an option. While life frustratingly remains in holding-pattern mode, I continue cultivating and flourishing where I’m planted. Foundering and drifting are undoubtedly worse than slowed movement and tacking. In the process, I can still be helpful to others. Most everyone I know is seeking a better situation for their livelihood. So many are struggling. On top of that, I’m listening to individuals of all ages express their cravings for community. Somewhere between pandemic quarantine life and The Great Resignation, too much of humanity turned inward to itself. The general willingness to gather pieces and create unifying bonds anew has left the popular consciousness. My own efforts continue, but indeed neighbors, colleagues, and kindredships are sum-totals comprising warm-blooded persons. Electronic personae cannot amount to reasonable facsimiles of human compassion and insight. As much as we know this, too many prefer their little pocket devices. Ironically, the bulk of human resources officers that recruit workers largely ignore the humanity exemplified in their conscientious applicants.


searching for positive signs

Grim times and thoughts intertwine to clog the mind as milfoil tangled around a ship’s propeller. Getting on the road does plenty to help my perspective, along with any intentional change-of-air. Occasionally I’ll have some music or radio accompaniment, but almost always some good threads of encapsulating monologue. And healthful silence. A good road trip- especially a scenic one- allows me to hear myself think (or not). Recently, getting outta Dodge was my very long-awaited family visit to Chicago, driving across the northeast, taking in the terrain. Making notes in my journal during a highway stop, I noticed how I had plenty of stamina for the 2200-mile round trip, but little for the sort of creative writing I’ve always loved doing. Exhaustion can be oddly asymmetrical. While listening to music and remembering the recently-departed, longtime favorite Mike Peters, I revisited the album “Strength” for the zillionth time. The Alarm is a prominent part of my life’s soundtrack. Among the songs, one of Peters’ verses, wrapped in refrains about struggling workers in a shuttering Welsh steel mill, affirms I’m just gonna sing about the things that I need, which are Love, Hope, and Strength. Essential, to be sure, and as the song proceeds, fuel for the fire. Enjoying the very short respite of being able to close my eyes while my coffee cooled in an I-90 service plaza, I penciled this in my journal: Sing about the things you need.

urban oasis

Inadvertently, my musing became an intrguing journaling prompt. “Sing about the things that I need,” looked to me like a way to cheer up my writing, and step back from the prevailing grimness. It surprised me that I found it difficult to answer the question with more than survival basics, though less poetic than “Love, Hope, Strength.” Instead, it was more of my quagmired scribbling about better work, quality of life, health of loved ones, stability, and community. Thinking through writing often carries a lot of repetition along, but re-reading thought processes can be fascinating. My ten days away from the grind began with some refreshingly unstructured time, which is always great for writing and reading- things that ordinarily require doses of stolen moments. My sister created a garden in a small space that has taken shape as an astonishing urban oasis. Perching outside was in itself salubrious, beginning with writing about gratitude for my earned-time-off to be able to make the travel, as well as for the welcomes received. Fresh air, good company, and tasty food; more gratitude. Looking up at the city’s trees, then down to my books on the patio table, gave me some Mike Peters-worthy words: Air, Light, Belonging, Writing, and Philosophy. Garden quiet combined with large-city hum, brought to mind choosing the substantial over the artificial. The following day, at a busy downtown café in the Loop, I added more answers in my journal such as “things that attest to the human spirit.”

notice what is good

The Newberry Library

Being a native born-and-bred city kid, I love a great city, and Chicago is a place that attests to the human spirit. As always, it did my soul a lot of good to immerse myself in miles of walking, intricate neighborhoods, grandiose avenues, L trains, and chatting with plenty of people along the way. On this particular sojourn, there was enough time and mild weather to see exhibits and some favorite businesses. The city’s vibrancy helped me replenish, at multiple levels.

Above: The Paper and Pencil, in the Andersonville neighborhood.
Below: Atlas Stationers, in the Loop.

savoury Chicago cheesecake, at The Pittsfield diner

It’s a long, long haul- and notching all those highway tolls, towns, and milemarkers reminded me of that reality, along with the constant need for patience in all things. After returning to Maine, a good friend said to me that “OK is fine,” which is to say that my big aspirations are a lot to expect. This was somewhat reassuring for me to hear, while my efforts continue as always. There are major projects yet to accomplish, and never enough time or influence. Survival always screams loudest and thus gets the majority of my attention. Countless others are likely in similar straits. Speaking for myself, along with my dreams, OK is momentarily fine, but I’ll keep on reaching higher. Modest measures of forward movement are better than nothing. Town-to-town gets me to the bigger destinations. En route, I’ve found it to be wisest to keep on identifying what is good, as much as possible. At work, I’m helping and teaching dozens of people daily, while conserving and offering primary source material. Every single workday attests to the extraordinary value of professional versatility, and how polished and productive I’ve been making this, contrasting how too many recruiters assume an unreality that ascribes one-skill-per-worker. Excelling at many things amounts to a full and focused life, and this should be desirable for any institution- no less in tight economic times. Identifying what is good keeps things interesting. This came to mind as my long-distance navigation wove through fields, vineyards, and along some of the Great Lakes. Despite the job market and all its barriers, like a true Alarm fan, I’m singing about the things that I need: Love, Hope, and Strength.

my favorite Chicago bookstore, The Armadillo's Pillow- in the Rogers Park neighborhood.

“...things that attest to the human spirit.”

Lake Michigan, viewed from the Rogers Park neighborhood.

confidence

“Lady Luck smiles on the few in this world,
I hope and I pray that she smiles on you.
I ain't gonna preach, no I ain't gonna teach;
I 'm just gonna sing about the things that I need:

A little bit of love, a little bit of hope;
A little bit of strength, some fuel for the fire.”

~ The Alarm, Deeside.


confidence and urgency

When progress is undiscernable, confidence is indispensable. Yet although progress and confidence need one another, these attributes are elusive, and there are no guarantees as to success. At least, confidence does not hinge upon outside approval. Individuals can derive their own courage, though it’s much easier said than done. Experience teaches me that confidence is abundant when it is not overtly needed, and that confidence is most needed when it is difficult to find. Feast or famine, and these are indeed deserted times for this burgeoning professional. By confidence, I refer to an unflappable, self-possessed inner assurance woven through one’s efforts and being. Last year, I wrote about what it means to sense the strength of one’s own forces, and that is surely tied to sustaining confidence. It is urgently needed now, as repeated defeats and rejected applications leave an erosive wake. Surely, I can find enough confidence now to continue trying- and even write about it- but I sense a depleting supply.

How is confidence restored, especially without success? How is determination maintained, the course kept, and hopes upheld- when no earthly rewards are assured? How to confidently navigate unwelcoming territory, and be simultaneously prosperous? By nature, crossroads and precipices prompt me to consider what has historically helped me to survive and find better circumstances. Not having material or influential privileges, I’ve relied on spiritual consolation, scholarship, writing, and creative imagination to endure hardships. There is no land in sight, and resources are thinning. When possible, over many years, I’ve made time for rejuvenating retreats. It’s important to know oneself, know what is constructive, and also know what to avoid. In addition, there is great advantage with changes of scenery and having friends outside of the daily confines. We are all able to encourage one another; we must all know that we are not alone. Among survival abilities is to find ways to look to an improved future- and to be willing to do so. Confidence is necessary fuel for the fire of meaningful life. St. Theophan wrote the following about the health of a soul’s ignited spirit:

“Cast aside everything that might extinguish this small flame which is beginning to burn within you, and surround yourself with everything which can feed and fan it into a strong fire.”

observed examples

Along with continually learning from my own lived precedents, there is also the active observer’s role. I try to retain the better things I’ve heard, seen, and read. These are parts of my inner arsenal called upon in times like these, and meant to be applied. In eleven concise sentences, the Forty-Sixth Psalm is an ancient, remarkable expression of calm resilience during unbridled turbulence. Amidst avalanches, ruptures, erosion, and desolation, there is a river whose tranquil streams will bless others and be blessed. Of this river, reads verse five, “she shall not be moved: God shall help her; and that right early.” The waters symbolize renewing life and grace. The waters run in a conduit, as with the human heart in an individual who calls to the Creator of all that lives, “refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” The petitioner must hold course, be still, and know, confident in the refuge of faith. Rootedness in the unseen demands all of a finite individual’s drive, but the cowering and hydroponic alternative is unappealing. The currents of the Holy Spirit carry the attentive soul to places of bold confidence.

Recently, I enjoyed a week’s residency at Beacon Hill Friends House, and studying at the Boston Athenaeum. Carving out time for reflection, reading, and writing has been my most effective way to renew. Staving off burnout, while struggling to build a life and career, is itself an occupational effort. And that uphill effort includes artistic expression, kindred souls, and written words. Among the Quaker community, I saw that familiar combination of conscientiousness and activism. Venturing in any distance, out of toxic trenches, helps to remind me that I’m not alone.

At the Athenaeum, my week allowed for an immersion into some adventurous memoirs from the 17th and 18th centuries, filled with accounts of endurance and inspiring words. These studies remain prominently in my musings through the days of respite. Among my shorter readings was a tract from 1829 by Robert Aspland, on the theme Courage and Confidence. He emphasized that confidence is safeguarded by those who love truth and keep faith with “an undaunted spirit, rising above oppression.” Aspland considered it an encouraging sight to behold others who were “cheered amidst reproach and persecution, by their own consciousness of rectitude and benevolence.” By virtue of our very pursuit of holiness, we can find confidence. Aspland wanted his listeners to take heart:

“Faith built upon knowledge is firm and durable, and not to be shaken by accidents and privations and pains of the present imperfect state of being- that the consciousness of laboring in a good cause imparts satisfaction and comfort to the mind.”

My studies in sources of old, pulled from the deepest archival recesses of the Athenaeum, provide new ideas, helping to retrain my thoughts to light the way ahead. And indeed they do remain with me, not just in my writing, but also while interpreting my days. Around the city, the concept of confidence continued appearing in front of me. Various friends showed me how they participate in meal preparations, to feed thousands of people in need, from their bases of operation in large church kitchens.

In surely much lighter and more ephemeral ways, I noticed something about self-confidence appearing in the local sports pages during my morning coffee. As it happens in competitive sports, success breeds success. Hockey is especially a game of momentum. Apparently the struggling Boston Bruins, “were in the midst of a crisis of confidence,” so wrote Steve Conroy of the Boston Herald. The next day’s Herald included this remark by Stephen Harris about rebuilding the team: “That’s a multi-year endeavor that requires faith and patience and can be ruined by short-term, emotional desperation.” The team was losing a lot of close games, and their numerous shots-on-goal were undisciplined. The players talked about “going out there and finding ways to win.”

Suddenly they started winning their games. The morning after an unusual come-from-behind win, Chris Mason of the Herald observed how the Bruins were “emotionally connected to this game.” That hard-won confidence had to be built upon. More victories followed, yet the players seemed too humbled to swagger; but they owned their confidence. David Backes, a forward, observed, “A level of consistency has gone up, a level of execution, a level of belief.” Another forward, Frank Vatrano added, “We’re just playing. We’re not worried about making mistakes.” Their coach, Bruce Cassidy, stressed they must “ err on the side of aggression,” and, “keep up the emotion and confidence level.” These athletes are using language not unfamiliar in philosophy and theology.




stabilization

It takes profound discipline to cast aside flame-quenchers like a philosopher, and to keep up the confidence level like a hockey player. Conscientious individuals must decide how, when, or whether to compromise. Our workplaces are too often wildernesses of distrust and uneven ethics. Confidence is difficult to build amidst environments that undermine and undercut. Some have enough wealth and good fortune to walk away from hostile situations; the rest of us are forced to stand straight through indignity- and the rarer souls find ways to achieve along dead-end streets. The insistence upon accomplishment amidst belligerence implies the collateral damage of absorption and erosion. It is a solitary crucible, rarely comprehended- even by the survivor.

Reading back through recent years’ journals, a phrase caught my attention. Giving myself some advice, I wrote, “Create pockets of stability amidst inhospitable places.” These may take the forms of creative ventures, but they can also be work projects and transactions. Encouraging sparks come by way of the enthusiastic responses from those I serve. Confidence must be cobbled together with ingredients such as gracious words, beautiful scenery, savory tastes, and gratifying tasks. Another learned survival measure is to conjure up confidence by taking long views ahead.

By looking ahead, even if not at anything specific, I make efforts to see beyond these present trials. The looking becomes quite tangible, as I naturally reach for my lifelong language of photography, going to ocean ledges and city streets. Using different cameras allows me to change the ways I see. I’d like to know that I can transcend the limitations of what has been, and stretch them into what can be. My years since graduate school have been fraught with looking for improved and sustaining employment. Productive endurance while ceaselessly prospecting is as demanding as it is daunting. Perceiving beyond limitations and rejections is nothing less than vital- and I must persevere. While out photographing, I’m reminded of having practiced the craft since childhood. I’m self-taught, and made a living by it for fourteen years, rising to the top of my profession. Economics and a dying field forced a career change, and short of a miracle this may be happening again. The tension of a low-pulse job market, excruciating employment situations, and the passage of time recalls the torrents threaded by the calm river of the 46th Psalm. The wincing, writhing brand of tolerance is not effectively tranquil; that will not do, and it is strangely the opposite of confidence. For me, the object of this trial is to reach that better situation without bitterness or discouragement, emerging the better for having endured.

strangers and pilgrims

“And the tougher it gets
And the more that I sweat
And the harder it fights
And the deeper it bites
I’m one step closer to home;
And you can tie my hands
Or whip my back
I can’t give in
’til the sky turns black
I may get lost
I’m one step closer to home.”

~ The Alarm, One Step Closer to Home


An exploration of negation skates upon thin ice. The lowest strata, weighted to darkest depths, are opposed by lofty and liberating heights. Yet it remains for an earnest soul to comprehend spectra of the spirit. Navigating into the open seas of this new year brings me through straits that grapple with the old shoals of alienation. Knowing to steer such shores is essential. Terrain and tossing tides change constantly, emphasizing the critical value of compass accuracy. And thus there must be ways to manoeuver through the anguish of exclusion, en route to the vast embrace of oceans and horizons.

Belonging and acceptance, with their conditional properties, have haunted me since my earliest memories. Of late, it has pronouncedly surfaced how my self-perception has been tainted for too long by the black-sheep and bullied experiences of childhood, along with familial and social rejections of young adulthood. Coming to solid terms with a life’s course of a tacking outsider that never quite belongs does not mean resigning to the shadows. Not at all. It must mean exulting in disjointedness. But thriving along uncharted realms demands an urgency to deflate that lower, darker, defeatist nature that propels despair and bitterness. Throw it overboard.

For the voyage to really progress, the high road of positive growth cannot be delayed an additional moment. Take stock in the kindred, understanding souls you know, and count them among retrievable family members. As protracted and relentless as the journey may appear, our times are temporal. We hang our hats upon provisional hooks, and our season’s duration is unknown. Forever is something that defies cartographic description. One might justifiably say that dreaming and hoping are steeply priced, but I contend that stuffing-away and discarding hopes would be far more costly. While trying to discipline myself not to dwell upon dead-ends, I pondered the skills of how thoughts are squelched by those who busy themselves lest old hopes return to the fore. Perhaps this is what so many do with deposited longings left among inner recesses to decompose and blend into the mind’s depths- too far from the surface to be fished out. Then I wondered whether there is an appropriate age for the cessation of aspirations; it seems I’ve either missed that memorandum or blithely excluded it from my much more consequential messages.


Psalm 137 : Babylonic rivers


Consider the words of the exiled Psalmist who wrote:

“... they that wasted us
required of us mirth...
How shall we sing the Lord’s song
in a strange land?”

More than an indentured captive’s lament, these ancient words reveal a soul forced to produce. The rivers of Babylon, and their circumstances in the opening stanza, represent the inhospitable and unfamiliar. Quartered along the waterfront, the laborers found themselves without music in their midst, and sat on the ground, after hanging their harps on willow branches. But they were commanded to stand again, take their instruments from their hanging hooks, and deliver cheer to their captors. The heart of this somber psalm does not include any description of the work they had to do, but instead the pain of forcing joy out of sorrow. Surveying a hostile proximity has a numbing effect, but the emergence of memory brings the deluge. The psalmist and his companions wept when they remembered their lost homes. They had to sing joyous and sacred songs as strangers in an alien land. Although, as Matthew Henry once commented, “it argues a base and sordid spirit” on the part of the captors, it remained for the captives to sing beyond their anger and their expressed hunger for vindication.


Waters of Siloë

The Waters of Siloë, Thomas Merton’s history of the Trappist monastic order, contains instances of wavering between historiography and subtle autobiography. Contemporary readers are able to apply the benefit of retrospective knowledge about Merton’s life. His superior recognized the potential for Merton’s literary skills to draw popular attention to the monastery, and he set the young monk to publishing histories and translations, along with philosophical works. The results were phenomenal, with new postulants and fanmail flocking to Gethsemani Abbey. As for the dutiful Merton, the life of silent contemplation eluded him; the vocation which brought him to the monastery remained unfulfilled until his last years. While unable in good faith to disobey his order, Merton industriously delivered the goods- even adding the beautifully insightful works that continue to inspire. He found ways to sing the Lord’s song through his anguish, and occasionally his distress appears between the lines.

Providing a historic chronicle of Cistercian monasticism, beginning with the late 11th century, Merton describes the major leaders and communities from medieval Europe to foundations throughout the world. Amidst the general narrative of The Waters of Siloë is a thorough and sensitive portrait of an ordinary French monk named Maxime Carlier. Merton elaborates about how Carlier, called to a life of silent contemplation and monastic solitude, had been sent by his abbot to fight in World War I. Though chronologically impossible, one would think Merton knew Carlier personally by the book’s vivid comments about the latter’s spiritual life and intentions. Merton’s summaries of Carlier’s inner renewal reads remarkably like his own experience. Perhaps it was Merton joining Carlier, sensing that “somehow, I don’t know how it was, my soul entered upon a state in which all its desires seemed to be fulfilled. It enjoyed the delight of resting in a feeling of secret happiness.”

It seems Merton is speaking through his telling of Carlier’s life, expressing the inner torment of having to go to war and leave behind his heart’s vocation. Carlier’s troop even had to march past his own monastery, but he was not allowed to stop and see his brethren. At the close of the Carlier vignette, Merton describes a reckoning which may have been his own: what puzzles us as divine unkindness is actually the sacrifice asked of us en route to perfection. When we are kept away from our hopes and goals, we must continue to bear the cross and walk worthily of our calling. Carlier rescued many of his fellow soldiers, was decorated with the Croix de Guerre, and finally killed in action. Concluding, speaking his voice through his history writing, Merton adds: “then the veils of faith were suddenly shattered, and the noise of the world ended forever, as the Cistercian soldier entered into the sounding silence of a contemplation without obscurity and without end.”


The Cloud of Unknowing : being nowhere

The anonymous 14th century author of The Cloud of Unknowing set out to counsel novices in his community for whom spiritual life seemed arcane and frustrating. Among basic points of advice and encouragement, still applicable to this day, is the unusual exhortation to be nowhere. Strangers and pilgrims do well to set their hearts upon things above, and in so doing find their affections “transformed by the inner experience of nothing and nowhere.”

“But to this you say: ‘Where then shall I be? By your reckoning I am to be nowhere!’ Exactly. In fact, you have expressed it rather well, for I would indeed have you be nowhere. Why? Because nowhere, physically, is everywhere spiritually.”

Reconciling aspirations, accomplishments, and disappointments as one who is “nothing and nowhere” reminds the humbled sojourner of the liberating aspects of being both something and everywhere. “When your mind focuses on anything,” the author advises, “you are there in that place spiritually, as certainly as your body is located in a definite place right now.” He continues, “go on with this nothing, moved only by your love for God.” Tolerating- even thriving- amidst life’s setbacks seems a burdensome purgation, yet somehow a necessary darkness we must navigate through. The nothingness borne within an individual is a cloud of unknowing between humanity and divinity. From material nothingness comes spiritual plenitude: “For in this darkness we experience an intuitive understanding of everything material and spiritual without giving special attention to anything in particular.” The reward for patiently persevering through dark times is confidence about our own destiny.

one step closer

Though we are “compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses,” the Epistle to the Hebrews equally offers reminders that the most prominent among our ancient forbears “confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” While trying to make sense of my abundant failings and occasional instances of acceptance, the best thing is to revel in the very alienation that oppressed so forcefully in the past. Similarly to the authors referenced in this essay, we move about in worlds as yet unrealized. Rejections far outnumber acceptances, but the wilderness of refusal must be traversed for the cause of gaining the pearl of affirmative. Strangers and pilgrims have the noblest of patron saints, as well as the strongest spines.

Let us be, at least, contentedly disjointed- bringing out the open-endedness and positive aspects of being perennially out-of-place. Instead of lucrative contracts, financial founts, or real estate, my chief assets begin with faith, wits, and oddness. The flip side of exclusion is the “nothing and nowhere” of the Cloud of Unknowing. Though not fully belonging anywhere, somehow part of many places. Moored by mere threads means mobilization toward improvement. Riches and recognition recede in importance, compared to the freedom to choose away from what is unproductive in favor of pursuing what is constructive and good. The voyage requires unrelenting vigilance, no matter how unsure prospects and opportunities appear. Comprehending how the blessed nothingness exceeds the world’s everything may require more than human faculties, therefore trust will have to suffice as a navigational instrument. “For myself,” wrote the anonymous author of Cloud of Unknowing, “I prefer to be lost in this nowhere, wrestling with this blind nothingness, than to be like some great lord going about everywhere and enjoying the world as if he owned it.” We may wonder what is really owned, and by whom.

faraway

“There’s a rushing sound that is sometimes heard
when your mind won’t let you sleep.
It’s the flickering sound of a thief
who’s come to tear up all these dreams.
Stealing from the heart, stealing from the soul
stealing from the future
On the wind that blows away my words.”

~ The Alarm, The Wind Blows Away My Words



seen from afar

Having strongly visual thought processes, concepts tend to begin as images. Many ideas formulate as pictures, which are equivalent to language. Often, thoughts are first “seen” in my mind’s eye; after that, words follow. As well, memories are retained as images. In perspective, words and images are brought together by points of reference both felt and seen. Even extraordinary and new sites can cause the mind to reach into the past recesses of the archives of the soul. While on the road the other day, looking up at very clear weather brought to mind how skies appear when traveling by plane. Flying over New England, I recognize the lakes by their shapes. Over the Atlantic, I’m fascinated by strata- and noticing ships very far at sea. If it’s clear and bright enough, at the head of a long linear wake, an ocean-going ship is a study in determination from 35,000 feet. It’s going somewhere, there’s a crew aboard, and an assignment. The vessel is as small to me, as the large jet must appear to those on its deck. Proportion is based upon distance. Driven and directed, the craft goes on. Leaving a straight trail to dissolve on the water’s surface, it is not marooned. Piloting is not determined by sight, and navigation and travel must continue- no matter the light, the absence of light, or weather. It must go forward, and get where it needs to go. That’s the real goal, and the only way to do that is to persevere. Land is out of range, and the ship is at once far from its port of departure and from its terminus.


distances covered

Becoming aware of my own traveled distances is as liberating as it is occasionally sorrowful. When I woke at around 3am the other day, my thoughts could only be assuaged by penciling some words in my journal. Hours later, in the evening, I re-read it as my own version of a ship’s log. The jottings are as from faraway at sea, very long away from family memories and my mean-street adolescence. The closest thing to a sentence reads, “try to keep the world from getting colder, vaster, less-familiar.” It’s how a wakeful and longing mind writes: not very rational, but it somehow makes sense. Every past has both its smooth stones and broken fragments, and in the wake of time a dissolving dispersal among deepest waters. Yet there are those nights when I awaken, realizing the very fact of the irretrievable. The distance itself becomes more prominent than childhood experiences or my varied journeys over the years since. The port from whence I launched is long out of contact, and the places have transformed into things hardly recognizable.

The following day those same words looked up at me, as my journal opened to sunlight outside with coffee. Looking skyward, I almost couldn’t relate to my own words. Reflecting back can be daunting and obstructive in times of weakness, and a similar recounting can be contrastingly optimistic in satisfying times. Darker nights can tempt the mind with regrets, with inventories of what cannot be done, with recollections of wrong turns, and with ruminations of wasted efforts and time. The light of history, meant to view events and ideas in context, illumines achievements and blessings. Reminders of what I’ve endured cause me to better appreciate what I discover. Experiences do provide strength and point to potential, when their value is recollected. Distinguishing the uses of the past is a discipline in itself, demanding a distillation of time’s complexities. Praise is often tied together with pain, returning my thoughts to the solitude of ostracism and distance. I wonder at how far I have really traveled, while reminding myself that as the ocean-going vessels seen from the air I am neither lost nor without direction.

uses of the past

“Wisdom consists in knowing God and in knowing oneself,” wrote Bossuet, in the 17th century. “From the knowledge of self,” he continued, “we rise to the knowledge of God.” A sense of self, within a context of reality, can help maintain solid forward movement. The first challenge, however, is to be aware of oneself without becoming self-engrossed. My own check-and-balance system incorporates tempering my tendency toward introspection with old parental disgust at my interest in things past and spiritual. But to establish self-awareness and to transcend as Bossuet enjoined implies knowing one’s true self. A life’s journey that comprises recollection, understanding, and renewed perspective. And to challenge judgements, examining how true they are. The purpose must never be to create a closed-loop of self-obsessed isolation. Quite to the contrary is the aspiration to blend into God’s presence in this world.

This self-knowledge imperative may also have a root in what most would call the less-than-spiritual. My earliest years were fraught with having to stand my own defense- and run fast- having been shown the ways of this world at the hands of merciless bullying. Younger, lighter, quieter, and smaller than the others in my grade, I was an easy target for bulked bands of armed cowards that lurked the hallways, basements, streets, public schools, and parks of my crowded crime-ridden section of New York City. The stuff of nightmares. I remember how, as a bloodied nine-year-old, I collected myself and sought out the head of the summer camp for some kind of justice. The director could not understand what the daily beatings and tauntings were doing to me, and gave me a talk about “peace and harmony.” The sheer uselessness of this was representative of misunderstanding and disregard at so many turns. I could comprehend others, but was very rarely understood- and never taken seriously. The grand reward, following more years of tension and muggings, was my determined departure from the city. Survival took a different form, certainly without the violence. Liberty does have its costs, and for some it is the solitariness of self-navigation- intensified all the more for the family black sheep.

Truly, there is too much that is laudable and open-ended, rather than for me to waste another minute in bygone quagmires! Momentum will not tolerate wallowing. Just like the Passover commemoration, sufferings are remembered in order to give thanks for the present and the gift of a future in a better land. A navigation without instruments or charts is that of the spirit of trust- within. This exploration can allow for a surpassing of obscurity into a less-impaired heart, through which I can embrace the Divine. Not a wallow, but well worthwhile; worth exceeding the weight of anguish. Here, past adds propulsion to present. A bridge is not purposed to be a place of permanent residence. Sure I can articulate disappointments and missed opportunities, but the next thing is that there must be a next right thing. “Build something positive out of the fragments,” I wrote today in my journal, during a breath’s worth of a coffee break. Memory is precious space; loosen the grip. Back at my desk, it occurred to me that as an archivist, memory is documentation. This manifests in many formats, and the enduring value of records concerns their authenticity and their uses to inform. Whether the information is “good” and “bad” is aside the point. The most critical aspect is accuracy.

ports of call

A favorite saying came to me from a Quaker who said, “the Christian life may be rough on the feet, but it’s good on the soul.” Times of respite are to be cherished, as they are exceptional. The reality of pilgrimage- especially one that fully embraces the whole voyage- it that it’s not always pleasant. Rarely easy, but surely not without joy, either! Balancing contexts of past and present is joined by perceiving horizons. For me, it means to steer carefully without getting caught up in the what-ifs of the not-yets which may only be mirages. Distances covered are facts of this life, and there are many more gratitudes than regrets. Even a small distance, such as between an especially dark night and a seat in the sun, aired my words to the light. What a wonder to notice anxious thoughts disperse as night predators do before sunrise. Patient observance is an ability slowly learned, and some great examples have been among wise and kindred friends. Claiming islands of quiet time- however humble or momentary- has been the best way to take stock and take care.


re-setting course

Resuming the voyage and tacking into the wind, I am aware of such times when the rigors of so many miles covered are sharply felt. But that is still not a reason to stagnate or to cheapen aspirations. “In speaking of the debt of reason to revelation,” Etienne Gilson wrote, “we may have in mind the moving memory of those moments when, as in the meeting-place of two convergent rays, the opacity of faith suddenly gives way within to the transparency of understanding.” Because there are daily responsibilities and many who count upon me, the two-sided coin of unknowing will have to ride on the dashboard: It remains both assuring and troubling alike, being aware of how little I really know. Within the gradual learning process, perhaps times of disappointment and despair are growth pains. Looking back, those hardhearted environments I’ve endured, in both childhood and since, have left the inadvertent by-product of sensitivity to others. But the more dangerous waters to avoid are replayings of harmful earlier chapters. Such awareness would attest to having truly learned something. To be watchful and to be spirited calls to mind Gilson’s imagery of that moving memory of moments, converging the rays to understanding. By pursuing this direction, even as the voyage traverses points without return, there will continue to be images to exceed those which have been seen, retained, and finally released.

fine lines

“When all is dark and dusty down the tracks;
And all paths from exile have roadblocks
on all points saying ‘no way out of here,
go back to where you came from.’

Only the thunder knows
what drives a man in his darkest throes
Fortune and poverty,
they’re so close, so close.”

~ Mike Peters and The Alarm, Only the Thunder


Stories, and rumors of more losses, surface and loom with each day’s passing. Pausing during a coffee break, it occurred to me how many setbacks I hear about, at nearly every turn. People moving out of the region, a neighbor vacates without notice, and numerous plans must be minimized. Long-standing businesses and cultural fixtures dissolve or downsize. Many who elude job losses must navigate warily in threadbare and fearful environments. And still, across all situations, there are more who listen to personal testimonials that string together with broadcast news stories. Pondering this today, I started categorizing the relocation, layoff, dissolution, and transition stories I’ve been hearing daily. The listening is part of dignifying the need for individuals to tell their adventures. And it’s hard listening. But there are unspoken embers of hope when the language of defeat is superimposed by creative alternative plans. There seems a fine line dividing what we determine to be success or failure. Indeed, our realities are challenged when another reality visits upon us. Of course, we’d prefer to draw the lines, rather than to have them drawn for us by somebody else. In this continuum, we will surely note the changes in our midst. And somehow, in realizing all that is transitory, the status quo reveals an undertone of fragility.

When considering the meaning of fragile, what comes to mind is the breakable. My thoughts turn to this imagery when the permanently dependable looks precarious. The idea of fragility speaks of delicate plants, complex mechanisms, anything requiring sensitive and conscientious handling. Hopes and health. Though essential, easily forgotten. And paradoxically, through these, strength is found. Disrupted balances are causes to perceive well-being as hanging by a thread. Is the status quo as delicate as it appears, when stopping to think about it? Perhaps it’s best not to stop and think- or at least not to allow a focus on vulnerability to derail forward continuity. Peace of heart is, in itself, fragile- even if well-anchored in road-tested faith. The nature of dynamism is fluidity, which may be considered a fragility. But in vigilantly maintaining balance and a consistent openness to the Holy Spirit, flexible strength is reinforced. There is fragility in all that is dynamic, and although it may seem a conflict of terms, both require the depths of our patience. “Tears may endure for a night,” wrote the ancient Psalmist, “but song finds us in the morning,” hours during which reassuring joy is easier to discern. Oh, but to thrive against restrictive limitations! In these times, so many of us find ourselves taking stock in our most palatably compromised ways of functioning and making ends meet. But it need not cheapen our dreams.

As the road ahead must negotiate unpredictable detours, it is vital to be able to prosper through instability. Whether or not I can serve as a conduit of hope, my proximity to the wellsprings of promise requires steady vigilance. A most surprising moment occurred last week during a long-distance pilgrimage travel: At the heart of complicated logistics, commotion, and exhaustive music preparations- was a ten-minute silence amidst over 400 people. A forgiving, respirating, and transporting quiet. Afterwards, resuming my instrument to play the next piece, I thought about how I might find ten-minute slivers in my early mornings- or even lunch hours- to help balance frenetic work weeks. Confident aspiration is a long looking-forward, hopefulness a serious business to which we must take hold.


Reflecting upon the many stories I’ve listened to recently, along with the hard-worked years of my own, I think of how to arrive at consistency amidst instability. After seeing enough times how circumstances can delicately oscillate, my thoughts turn to how one can pivot the fine point from untenable to productive. While so much is said about “bad to worse,” or as a neighbor once said to me, “just worser and worser,” this is enjoining me to aspire through such darkness. A solid course of trust pursues a fine line through narrow gates, laying tracks of trust. One recent cold post-midnight, gazing through icy windows at silent streets, I thought of that dividing line between despair and confidence. How to press forward along the high road. Somehow, the most reassuring thought was to remind myself of where I am now, and how far I’ve traveled on this marathon voyage.


There are prospects yet to ascend. Within a vital perseverance must be a solid sense of durable certainty. Memory recalled the words of the imprisoned apostles, passed down from antiquity, referring to being held captive by their hopes. The fine line may be one of perception of circumstances, how derailing realities can be dealt with and interpreted. Fluid situations demand a readiness which must rise above the gravity of grimness. Indeed, thriving above undertones of instability requires more daring than before, challenging me to continually renew inwardly despite what is outward and perishable. At times the juxtaposition of enduring and impermanence is more obvious than others. For now, the present exposes such contrasts. As an artisan, I am aware that with an increase in contrast there comes an emergence of sharp edges and fine lines.

l'esprit consolateur

“Hold on
to what you believe is right;
Don’t let anyone turn your eyes.
Look ahead;
Don’t stop to look behind.
The past ain’t no friend of mine.”


~ Mike Peters and The Alarm, We Are the Light

After work, I went back out for a walk. The outdoors, in such varied forms, can present the world to me as refreshingly greater than the constraints of workday routines. Perhaps some of you know those paradoxical occasions of being simultaneously saturated and drained. It happens; fortunately, not every day. Giving and doing require the counterbalance of reflection and release. So out I stepped, stoop to sidewalk and across my street in a westerly direction, away from busy thoroughfares. My feet needed to move, so that I could absorb fresh cool air and the panorama of the night sky. Mazes of shadowed streets, interspersed with green spaces, dissolved fine details into the night’s landscape. My steps slowed to notice a lit doorway here, a window there, and finally upwards to stars.

Intuitively, seeking a place to focus my thoughts, my steps brought me to a church courtyard with a very plainly sculpted statue and glass-encased votives planted in the ground. The stone carved outstretched hands gave me just enough detail to resettle my thoughts, in the darkness, and the peace of that moment became a reminder of the Spirit which calls from within. I remembered a recent monastic pilgrimage at which, upon my weary arrival, I could only gaze at a sparsely-lit icon. The sight was profoundly comforting, and my prayer that night- and for the following two weeks- began with, “what words do you have for me?” An unexpected dialogue. Just a few days ago, outside under the night sky in the small courtyard, that familiar question returned to my thoughts. “What words are there?” What might I learn anew of this hidden wisdom that impresses so deeply- this concealed knowledge that eludes contrivance?

Intermissions from repeated routines, such as the quiet brisk walks, bespeak a thirst for clarity of thought- and for assurance. Specifically, a state of being assured is to be certain in mind and confident in manner. When we are assured, we find ourselves free of self-doubt. In the obscurity of the courtyard, under a night sky, the word settling in my stilled thoughts was believe, recalling the context, “let not your heart be troubled.” Surely a consolation for one who strives relentlessly. Now I question whether outcomes and personal worth are results entirely dependent upon my efforts. Stopping to breathe and reconsider in that courtyard took more discipline for me than to simply persist in my usual customary uphill marching. With trusting steps, there will be less for me to unlearn and more to comprehend.

Cloaked in shadowy hues that blended firmament and ground, it came to mind that I have indeed known the soul’s ascent. And this brings me to reflect upon the wonder of submerging in God, rather than pushing myself to emerge with recognition. Little recollective tastes to remind me that I do know the source of spiritual consolation, and I don’t doubt the place of Divine friendship to which I’m called. There are apprehensions in fears of being forgotten, and that may be a basis for my powerful memory. As well, the motivation to preserve is to see to it that essentials of living and caring are not tossed away, but instead enshrined within. But why remember wrongs more indelibly than goodness? Memory is so unquantifiable a mystery, yet it instructs me to cease steering into dead-end roads and expect them to be passable. Considering reality without becoming jaded. In this Advent season, my thoughts turn to creative visitation of Spirit into sense.

Between scurrying and spaces of solace, a slice of Silent Night has appeared to me- in uncomplicated anonymity. The world can seem so small, when our slavish pursuits can set us into narrow trenches. Ascent and assurance follow aspiration- and an openness to the serendipitous present, rather than to assume all that is needed, with the exact forms these answers must take. Aspiring is much like dreaming, and I hope for neither to become foreign to me. If I am to revel in the sphere of dreams, then I do need to untether myself from derailing diversions and defeatism. Yesterday, I was remembering the report card comment for which I’m proudest of all: At the end of my year of second grade, my teacher filled in the comment box with, “he daydreams too much in class.” My colorful high-floor view of the swirl of 94th Street was far more captivating, evidently, than whatever was being taught from the blackboard. And I’m still learning the fine balance between disciplined structure and healthy sidelines. But we need not consider whether it is permissible to dream, or all right to look further than this week’s problem-solving. Perhaps no-one can remind us to pursue realms of hidden wisdom, above and beyond “the wisdom of this age.” We can, however concealed, manifest consolation, and be living reminders for others. Our prayers are surely not unheard whispers in the wind. Now to believe and to remember this.

conduit

“Let the river
Let the river run.
Let the water
Let the water fall.
Flow down off the mountain
and into the sea.
Let the river run its course.”

~ Mike Peters and The Alarm, Let the River Run its Course

Among those who ask for my help with their studies, there are many whose fascination with history is combined with grieving the passage of time. One person that comes to mind exemplifies this sentiment, which draws together a true spirit of inquiry with a kind of desperate regret over the consequences of societal change. “Why was that place torn down?” “Why don’t people do this, or that, anymore?” Looking at old photographs that have advertisement signs on diners, I hear, “why are meals so much more expensive now?” Such inquiries know no age limitations; I’m hearing questions like this from age groups not commonly associated with such sentiments. It’s a nostalgia for a past not even experienced. “Why isn’t that place the same as it was before?” What a wondrous question, indeed. Of course, there are deliverable and practical answers. Economics and inflation. Buildings that weaken, relocations, and misbegotten destruction called “urban renewal.” I hear myself explain why some place or thing is no longer as it was- or where it had been- trying not to sound oddly parental or pessimistic.

Indeed, I myself am not without my own sentimental streak- which I’ve unwittingly had since childhood. And surely the passage of time is the natural course of living and witnessing the years we each have known. Well aware of these things, and capable of conveying the rational answers, there do remain those quiet moments when I wonder at the rapid movement of time- and also notice myself wishing to retrieve it. Oh, and don’t we see this all around us: costly efforts to try to arrest, avert, or reverse the by-products of time. Many want to find what they feel they’ve lost, even with the fervor of a self-imposed desperation. Such pressures are fed by the ways communication technology and research are becoming more instantaneous. But we must beware not to focus on mirages which are superficial representations of what we think we seek. The mythical Dr. Faustus sold off his life’s blessings and burned his eternity in exchange for an unfortunate backward turn of the clock. Though a fable, so stark a tragedy gives us an allegory that directly connects the idea of selling oneself out in pursuit of what can never be possessed. Inevitably the only constructive thing to do is to come to terms, both reluctantly and gratefully, with the flow of years and seasons. The easiest course is to work with the continuum of our selves and the world around us, and not to be consumed in resisting friction.

When we embark upon a retrieval of what is past, our steps navigate a diverted direction from the course of reality. What might resemble a retracing of paths is something more like a reconstruction upon shifting sands. We may have harbored yearnings for what has passed, but the past is not a home that waits for us. I can think of occasions in which I have returned to places that had deep impressions from long ago. After the first understanding of my disorienting comparison between past connotations and a kind of present benignity, there are occasions I’ll return even just to test that spirit of transformation. One might say we are our own context, especially when streets seem suddenly narrower, distances shorter, and our intuitive responses at ease. If things appear different, perhaps indeed they are. And if we recognize our own changes, surely those people and places we have known surely do not remain as they are etched in our impressions. Our natural attempts and our subsequent reconciliations are reminders of the constant transition of our lives themselves, which were created to evolve and be open to advancement. Was it really so good, back then? After all, we do selectively visit our pasts. Still further, does the past miss anyone? In the harmony of accepting, and not resisting, comes the reminder that in the momentary heaviness of letting go of what is already buried by layers of time, there is also a buoyant liberation of unknown prospects that await.

While pondering these questions and ideas over the past week, I’ve wanted to write these thoughts along a river- and here I am perched upon a riverbank. Textured ripples pass across my line of sight in an unending scroll of calligraphic strokes and words. Not as the receding and advancing tides I know along the ocean, but a single-direction flow. Barely a quarter-mile upriver, there are falls which feed this present breadth- with rapids unrelenting and constant as the passage of time. I remember, as a twelve-year-old, looking with wonder at mountain waterfalls, telling myself that “it never shuts down,” city kid that I was. I imagined the voluminous torrents going night and day through every season, “always on and never running out.” This amazed me.

The late-summer brings me to especially recall continuities and returns. This time of the year has always felt more like a new year’s threshold to me. The Hebraic calendar draws together times of reflective reckoning with the observance of a new year of seasons. Part of that introspection includes an actual casting of bread upon moving waters, known as Taschlikh which means “you will cast away.” In a heart’s movement of trust, we can release those symbolic fragments and watch them disappear along the streaming conduits of the earth. This tradition echoes the words of Micah, who expressed how our souls are cleansed with reconciliation as God casts our sins into the farthest irretrievable depths to be remembered no more. For me, it is also a casting away of regrets, a gesture of unburdening, and a choosing away from what obstructs me from what is holy. At this bend in the river, it is for me to jettison what I do not need, so that I can make room for what is life-giving. Those bread morsels are not insignificant, humble as they may be, disappearing past the overhanging willows and reminding me that to truly gain my life I must let it go. My role is more a steward’s than an owner’s. It is for me to navigate the tides of time, and not to be consumed with resisting the currents by deviating or freezing the waters. The river itself is a sign of continuity, as well as a conduit from mountains to sea. It is solidity in fluidity, and as I write it is visible to me that in the faithful consistency of prayer, silts of excess are washed away.

ne laisse pas mes ténèbres me parler

"There is a light, a light that never dies
See it shine, shining in my sorrow
There is a light, a light in my desire
See it shining, shining for tomorrow

Only love can give me an answer
Oh I know that love can heal
From the dust a new hope rises up
Only love can set me, set me free"

~ Mike Peters & The Alarm, Only Love Can Set Me Free


Just as I have begun to resume a modicum of regular sleep hours and at least a daily meal, the restless nights have returned. This time, though knowing I’ll pay for it later this evening, I simply woke and washed at 4am. It was a chance to watch for the gradual sun rise by candlelight. In due time, the exterior gradations of ambient illumination exceeded that of the lit votives and tapers on my writing table.

So very hungrily and tirelessly I have been pressing on for wholeness, navigating the dense and grievous haze. At times I can wake with a forward sense of the moment, otherwise my thoughts are invaded with imagined reasons why I must be so detestable. But then, if loving gestures reflect the hearts of those who give, perhaps in a similar sense hateful actions reveal the essence of their origins. While the life of the mind lends itself to the temptations of rationalization, my recent learning is giving way to regarding such thoughts from more of an observer’s vantage point. Indeed, there have been- and there will remain- unreasonable actions and sentiments that will never make sense, however what is always at hand is my ability to go forward without capitulating to morose principles. Even this far down the line, after things that would desensitize anyone, I am positively sure I will always love and proceed from my heart.
It is the only way.

heart open wide

"It’s funny how they put you down when your hands are held up high;
And you open up your heart and soul,
but that’s not enough for most."

~ Mike Peters (The Alarm), Going out in a Blaze of Glory

On the premise that all life and faith culminates in relationships, and still further that all relationships involve choices, I am determined to continue to develop my emotional fluency and spiritual articulation.

Even from the amplified vulnerability of abandoned ruins, this is still the course to take. It is a kind of responsibility. A response-ability, we could boldly say. To be a complete and self-respecting individual, and to be faithfully compassionate toward others, I insist on better comprehending how to love and how to enunciate it with the whole of my being. And I’m doing it. It’s palpable.

I prefer it that way.